National Statistics Institute

In the late 90s, was launched the European Urban Audit project, in order to collect statistical information comparing the quality of life of major European cities. Since then it has been developing in different phases or cycles of data collection, approximately three years each. The project is sponsored by the European Commission Directorate-General Regional and Urban Policy (DG Regio) in collaboration with Eurostat and is currently in his sixth collection round. Throughout his more than 15 years, despite numerous methodological and territorial changes, it has gained maturity, has managed to establish itself and has guaranteed its continuity in time.

The compilation of the information corresponds mainly to the national statistical institutes of the member states that are involved in the project. Currently, information is collected on more than 900 EU cities for which it contains 171 variables and 62 indicators. For the supramunicipal or sub-municipal areas, only part of these indicators are collected (more information on the
Eurostat website).

The publication Urban Indicators presented here is a selection and adaptation of the contents of the Urban Audit project, now called "data collection for sub-national statistics (mainly cities)". From the list of indicators collected for the European project a limited set of 38 indicators covering different domains has been chosen, with information since 2010. Data are provided for selected Cities in the European project, Greater Cities or areas where the city expands beyond its administrative boundaries, the supramunicipal areas defined by its labor influence (Functional Urban Areas) and for sub-municipal areas, equivalent to the administrative division in districts. More information on the
Eurostat Statistical Atlas website.

Although the most important novelty in the 2017 edition was the introduction of new territorial units and the updating of some already existing, in this year's publication the most noteworthy is the incorporation of 4 new indicators and the creation of a group or space level formed by all the Spanish municipalities of more than 20,000 inhabitants, with reference 1st January 2016. The sub-municipal level is maintained for the 16 cities with more than 250,000 inhabitants of the previous editions, but introducing for each the modification in its composition as a result of the update based on the “seccionado” with references 1st January 2016 and 1st January 2017.

The 4 new indicators are the life expectancy at birth, the average annual net income per capita, the average annual net income per consumption unit and land uses. This last indicator is subdivided into 8 categories.